Arthdal Chronicles: The Sword of Aramun (2023) Episode 6

Episode 6 of Arthdal Chronicles season 2 starts with Eunseom plunging the sword into the tree and living up to his destiny. At the same time, Tagon awakens and finds the queen before him, shocked. He’s slain both of his handmaidens who are motionless on the ground.

The Queen reminds him that he’s not in a dream and he needs to pull himself together. He’s still seeing visions of his father though, but that’s to be expected given it’s side effects from the medicine he’s been taking. As Dalmi confirmed in the past, Tagon will recover though. For now, he needs to get through this period in one piece.

The Queen speaks to the pharmacist and is shocked to learn fly agaric was used to treat his wound. She question whether this is actually safe to use on an Igutu, and she admits that it’s hard to tell. It would appear that the effects are much stronger for him given he’s Igutu so these hallucinations may last a while.

She heads off to visit Tanya after and questions Saya’s twin. Tanya brings up the Queen’s thoughts and continues on to mention Aramun. The Queen challenges her though, pointing out that she needs to remember her place given the role she’s playing as Queen here. When she leaves, Yangcha returns.

Yangcha leads Tanya to the tree and they notice that the prophecy has come true. In fact, they pick up the chunk of tree with the sword wedged in and bring it back to the Great Shrine.

Tagon eventually does awaken to a ruckus outside. The White Peak Tribe are outside and ecstatic to see him. They cheer and rejoice their King… but that’s not how Tagon sees it. In fact, he believes they’re all laughing at him.

Spiralling out of control, his father appears inside his chamber and riles up Tagon, pointing out that he needs to kill everyone and tha’ts his “real destiny” now. The handmaidens don’t want to head in and give him his medicine, given their comrades were killed before, but Nunbyeol volunteers.

Tagon questions Nunbyeol about blood but she shrugs off his threats, telling him that the colour of blood is irrelevant. Tagon is taken aback by this and as he contemplates the answer, his father disappears.

Saya is led off with the Wahan Tribe, where he eventually heads into the camp with the Union. He’s greeted with elation, jubilation and cheers. Saya is taken aback and quiet. He sees how Eunseom is living, taken to his chambers to relax.

Saya plays his part well, despite not knowing any names, and he cleverly has the tribe pay their respects to Chaeeun for bringing him this far. It’s a clever ploy and it works well to keep his ruse up. Saya is also shown the horses in the tribe too, which appear to be suffering from an infection spread by Neanthals.

There’s no way to heal them, and it seems odd that the horses from Arthdal aren’t affected by this either. Saya decides to rile the tribe up and claims that it’s a yeomari (spy) that’s causing this and he promises to find the culprit. In reality, he intends to destroy the tribe from within, planting seeds of doubt and turning the tribe against one another.

Chaeeun questions what he’s doing but Saya shrugs it off, pointing out his duty and that he’s just doing what he should be as a disgraced general of Arthdal. There’s only one in camp who knows of his identity and as he’s threatened with a knife, Saya intentionally cuts his own neck and calls for aid. He makes Ipsaeng out to be the spy.

The entire Ago Tribe remember it but Ipsaeng challenges him, asking Saya to remember which of their friends died. As we know the twins are connected and can see each other’s memories. And Saya passes the test, shocking Ipsaeng who is then imprisoned.

At the Bijaram hut, Eunseom reunites with Dalsae, who’s shocked to see him. He realizes now that he does have a twin, and obviously knows he’s causing chaos in camp. While they scramble for a solution, back in Arthdal the king disappears. Somehow nobody sees him wander off and into the Great Shrine to see the sword of Aramun.

Tanya shows up to greet him, but it’ here that Tagon realizes the prophecy isn’t about him. Tanya claims that the mission will “come to him” soon, but upon using her powers, Tanya hears a child crying inside his head and knows that he’s in pain.

When he leaves after talking about the bell, sword and mirror, the others in the shrine contemplate what this means. In fact, Tagon heads straight back to the council room, calling himself the reincarnation of Aramun and sends out a shocking order.

Tagon wants everyone born in the year of the singing wolf in Arthdal, and the surrounding area, to be captured. If they resist, they have orders to be killed. The council are shocked, given it would also mean grabbing those loyal to Arthdal too, but the King’s command is final and he’s not of sane mind.

The singing wolf is when the three prophetic children were born, so the idea here from Tagon is just to round them all up and kill them. The Queen catches on pretty quickly too, knowing that this was the year of the Azure Comet and that the prophecy Asa Sin gave all those episodes ago has now finally been realized. Tagon has lost his mind.

The Queen tries to talk him out of this but Tagon shrugs off her concerns, pointing out that she’s never been on his side. Not fully. Ater all, she actually embraced him and told the King he did well the day he killed his father. Tagon refuses to be fooled by the Queen again and ignores her pleas.

After this, the Queen decides to meet with the elder of the Asa tribe. As arrangements are made, Ipsaeng is helped out from his prison and contemplates killing Saya in his sleep with a sickle. Ipsaeng unfortunately falters for a few seconds, and it’s enough for Saya to wake up. As they fight, Myonita gets in the middle of the pair and she ends up stabbed.

This turns Saya’s mind away from his path, believing that Inaishingi has real loyalty given people will gladly die for him. As he ponders this, in the meeting with the tribes he learns that shipments of weapons are en-route to their location. Saya thinks this over before giving the command for the army to be ready. He’s going to lead them.

Badoru shows up midway through the meeting, under instructions to lead Saya out of the tribe and to Eunseom, so he can deal with him. The operation goes ahead and Saya’s forces are ambushed and outnumbered. in the forest. The sound of a whistle arrow is the keY here though. Eunseom has instructions for Badoru to lead Saya to a secluded area, where a disguised Eunseom confronts his twin.

The Episode Review

The ending of Arthdal Chronicles hints that we’re going to get Saya and Eunseom team up together, especially if the prophecy is anything to go by. While this is happening, Tagon continues to spiral out of control and his plan to round up everyone is almost certainly going to backfire.

The courage of those in Arthdal is hanging by a thread as it is but deciding to round up all these people – even the loyal ones – could see them shift allegiance. But then, of course, we also have the queen to contend with.

This was definitely a better episode and there’s lots of good character work done here, especially with Saya. Him learning humility and that people are willing to genuinely die for Eunseom out of loyalty and respect, rather than titles and fear is a nice touch and definitely a highlight of the episode.

This big confrontation is going to ignite next week’s double-bill, and quite who will come out on top is anyone’s guess.